News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Mozilla announced the new Firefox web browser 130.0 release this Tuesday!
The new Firefox release introduced “Firefox Labs” page in Settings, allowing to try out experimental features which are in development and evolving, which could impact how the web browser works.
So far, it includes AI chatbot allowing to chat with ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral. Though few of them need login first.
Firefox web browser announced new 128.0 release one day ago on Tuesday.
This is a new monthly release that introduces some handy new features. They include context menu option to translate a selection of text. Rather than translate full web page, user can now highlight single or a selection of text, then use right-click and select to translate the text.
Mozilla announced a new monthly release of its Firefox web browser on March 19.
In the new release, the caret browsing mode, keyboard navigating just like in text editor, also works in the built-in PDF viewer.
The Qwant search engine has been expanded to all languages in the France region along with Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
In MacOS, Firefox now uses the macOS fullscreen API for better user experience for fullscreen spaces, menubar and the Dock. In Windows, it populates the taskbar jump list more efficiently, for a smoother overall browsing experience.
Firefox Caret Browsing setting option
Mozilla Firefox web browser version 123.0 now is available to download!
In the new monthly release, Firefox View page now have “Search” function, allows to search a page from each tab of recent browsing, recent closed tabs, open tabs, tab from other devices, and history.
Firefox 123.0 also added a new menu option to easily report web compatibility issue for currently tab.
For Ubuntu machine with NVIDIA graphics card, here’s how to implement hardware acceleration for video playback in Firefox web browser.
Firefox so far only supports VA-API for GPU decoding to offload CPU and save power. Both Intel and AMD GPUs support VA-API. However, NVIDIA so far supports the api only through the open-source Nouveau driver.
If you have only NVIDIA GPU running with proprietary driver, then hardware video acceleration does not work out-of-the-box for Firefox.
For choice, there are libvdpau-va-gl1 driver (h.264 only) or libva-vdpau-driver, but both seems no longer updated. The best choice so far is the free open-source nvidia vaapi driver.
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Mozilla announced new 122.0 release for its free open-source Firefox web browser this Tuesday!
This is a new monthly release that include minor new features. For Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and their based systems, Firefox now provides official .deb packages through an apt repository.
Meaning now, there are 5 official ways to install Firefox in Ubuntu Linux:
Besides providing .deb package for the Stable release, the apt repository also includes the packages for Beta, Nightly, and Dev versions of the popular web browser.
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Firefox web browser announced the new monthly 121.0 release this Tuesday!
For Linux, the release finally default to Wayland session when available, meaning for Ubuntu 22.04 and higher (exclude Snap), Fedora Workstation, and other Linux with recent GNOME Desktop.
With Wayland, it has better support for touchscreen & touchpad.
User can use 2-finger swipe left/right to navigate forward and backward, and 2-finger pinch gesture to zoom in/out. It as well has per-monitor DPI settings, better graphics performance, and more.
Sadly, this feature does NOT enabled for Firefox Snap in my case for Ubuntu. User can choose to either install Firefox as .deb package, or manually enable Wayland support for the Snap pacakge.
Besides Wayland for Linux, Firefox 121.0 also adds Voice Control commands support on macOS systems, and prompts Windows users to install the Microsoft AV1 Video Extension to enable hardware decoding support.
Other features in Firefox 121.0 include:
:has() selector, the hanging and each-line keywords, balance keyword, lazy loading iframes.Most Linux that pre-installs Firefox, will build the latest package soon and publish into system repositories.
For Ubuntu, the snap package has been updated to v121.0. It should update to the new release automatically.
If NOT, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command to do the update manually.
snap refresh firefox
For the portable Linux tarball, as well as the official release note, go to the link below:
This simple tutorial shows how to install Firefox Beta, Firefox Developer Edition, or Firefox Nightly in Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, using the new official repository.
Mozilla announced new official apt repository for Debian and Ubuntu users few months ago, which contains the .deb package for Firefox Nightly build.
Now, the repository also contains packages for Firefox Beta and Firefox Developer Edition! And, here’s step by step guide shows how to use it to install the latest packages in your system.
NOTE 1: Ubuntu also has an official PPA contains Firefox Beta package. Though, it’s maintained by members from Ubuntu Team.
NOTE 2: This tutorial is tested and works in Debian 12, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.
To add the new repository, you need to first download & install the key, so your system will trust the packages from it.
First, open terminal either from start menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard.
When terminal opens, run command to make sure ‘/etc/apt/keyrings’ exist for storing the keys.
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
Then, download & install the key by running the single command below in terminal:
wget -q https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg -O- | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc > /dev/null
If ‘wget’ command not found, run sudo apt install wget to install it.
After that, you can verify the new key file by listing the content of that directory: ls /etc/apt/keyrings.
Also in a terminal window, run the single command below will create a config file and write the source repository.
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc] https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list > /dev/null
When done, you may verify by running cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list to print the source file content.
After adding the apt repository and key, run the command below to refresh system package cache:
sudo apt update
Finally, install Firefox Beta by running command:
sudo apt install firefox-beta
The repository also contains Firefox Stable, Development, and Nightly versions! Replace firebox-beta in last command with firefox, firefox-devedition, or firefox-nightly according which version you want to install. For STABLE version, you however NEED to set higher PPA priority.
Non-English user may also install the language package by running command:
sudo apt install firefox-beta-l10n-xx
Replace xx with the shortcode for your language. Also, replace beta for dev or nightly version accordingly.
The new Firefox Beta uses same logo to Firefox Stable, and it also displayed as “Firefox” in start menu.
If you have more than one edition of Firefox packages in system, then you may have to differ them from each other by changing the name.
To do so, first launch terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to copy the .desktop config file from system to local directory:
sudo cp /usr/share/applications/firefox-beta.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
Then, change the app name to “Firefox Beta” by running command:
desktop-file-edit --set-name="Firefox Beta" ~/.local/share/applications/firefox-beta.desktop
The change should apply automatically in few seconds. If not, run sudo update-desktop-database to update the database manually.
If you also want to differ the icon, use --set-icon='/path/to/new/icon' in last command.
Firefox web browser announced the release of 119.0 this Tuesday.
The new release improved PDF editing, by allowing to add images and alt text, in addition to text and drawings.
“Firefox View” icon has been replaced with a folder icon instead of the previous Firefox logo. And, it allows to see all open tabs from all windows, and all tabs from other synced devices.
The release also has some security improvements. They include Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) to extend TLS encryption to cover more of the handshake and better protect sensitive fields, supports the partitioning of Blob URLs for Total Cookie Protection, and restrict website fonts visibility to system fonts and language pack fonts in Enhanced Tracking Protection strict mode.
Other changes in Firefox 119 include:
The official release note as well as the download link is available at the link below:
For Ubuntu, the pre-installed Firefox Snap package has already been updated to v119. If you don’t have it, try running snap refresh firefox in terminal.
For the .deb package, Mozilla Team PPA is available though you have to manually block the Snap package.
This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Firefox Nightly in all current Ubuntu releases!
Firefox Nightly is the bleeding edge version of the web browser that updates twice a day. It contains features that are still in developments months or even years before they become mainstream.
The Nightly build is more likely to crash than the stable release. For testing purpose or power-user who prefer the very latest features, here you can install Firefox Nightly via 3 ways!
The easiest way to get Firefox Nightly is using the Snap package. It receives updates automatically, however, will override the pre-installed Firefox, by updating it to the latest edge channel.
Ubuntu 22.04 and higher users, can simply open Ubuntu Software (or App Center). Search Firefox and switch channel/source to “latest/edge”.
Or, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run the command below instead to install Firefox Nightly:
snap refresh firefox --channel=latest/edge
NOTE: The Snap package will take use the previous profile. In the case, you can open about:profiles page, then create a new profile and set it as default.
Mozilla announced new official apt repository recently. It contains the .deb package of most recent Firefox Nightly package for all current Ubuntu and Debian releases.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run command to download & install the key for that repository:
wget -q https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg -O- | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.gpg > /dev/null
2. Next, add the apt repository by running the single command below:
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.gpg] https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list > /dev/null
This command will create the ‘mozilla.list‘ file under /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory and write the source line into it.
3. Finally, refresh the system package cache:
sudo apt update
And, install the Nightly build of Firefox from that repository by running command:
sudo apt install firefox-nightly
For choice, there’ a daily build PPA maintained by Ubuntu members. Which, so far supports Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04
The PPA is a good choice, since it contains native .deb package. It will NOT override any other Firefox Stable package (neither deb nor snap), and uses its own profile for storing user data.
1. To add the PPA, first press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. Linux Mint user needs to manually update the system package cache after adding PPA, though its done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04 and higher:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, install the Firefox Nightly build by running command:
sudo apt install firefox-trunk
After installing the package, launch it from ‘Activities’ overview screen or app menu depends on your desktop environments. And, you can use “Software Updater” (or Update Manager) every day to keep the package up-to-date.
For the Snap package, just open terminal and run command will restore to the pre-installed Firefox package:
snap refresh firefox --channel=latest/stable
However, the restored Firefox Snap will create a new user profile instead of using the original one, though you can manually backup and restore your important data.
For the apt repository package, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to remove it:
sudo apt remove --autoremove firefox-nightly
To remove the source repository, just delete the source file and key by running the 2 commands below one by one:
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list
sudo rm /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc
And, refresh system package cache via sudo apt update to apply change.
For the PPA package, run the command below to remove it:
sudo apt remove --autoremove firefox-trunk
Also remove the Ubuntu PPA by either running command:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa
or use “Software & Updates” utility under ‘Other Software’ tab by removing the source line.
